Construction safety management: an exploratory study from China

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract: This paper aims at presenting the analysis of the views of construction participants in China's construction industry on three major site safety issues. First, data from three distinctive roles (project managers, safety officers, and foremen) on site safety knowledge were analysed. Results indicate that they have low levels of safety knowledge. This is consistent with the existing literature, implying that safety training and education is a major issue around the world. In addition, the views of project managers and safety officers are further elicited on the second issue (that is, factors affecting site safety) and the third issue (that is, methods for improving project safety management). Results indicate that both parties have quite consistent views. The six most important factors are 'lack of attention to safety protection by workers', 'lack of attention to safety management by main contractors=project managers', 'insufficient safety training', 'inadequate safety level', 'tiredness of workers', and 'poor quality of construction materials and equipments'. The five most promising methods are 'increase in safety investment in terms of manpower, capital and finance', 'improvement in safety operations', 'no alcohol at work', 'increase in safety training and education for workers', and 'increase in safety inspection'. Discussions are given in this paper.

Critical Success Factors for Safety Management of High‐Rise Building Construction Projects in China

“…Appropriate special construction plans are essential technical documents used to guide management and operations. Safety inspection [28,30,31,35,37,[40][41][42][43][44][45] Safety programs may require safety managers (e.g., safety supervisor, project manager, and safety officer, etc.) to conduct adequate inspection during construction to protect workers from workplace hazards.…”

“…Detailed safety management plans and safety goals should be discussed and determined through such meetings. Management support [10,11,40,45,48,51,[54][55][56][57] Management support can ensure that sufficient resources are allocated for safety management, and proper actions are conducted to improve safety performance.…”

Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Safety Risk Identification in Construction Projects

“…b) Safety training is traditionally based on indoor teaching, which lacks interaction, intuition and hands-on training, and therefore marginally improves the safety consciousness of workers [9]. c) Safety officers often apply inappropriate site monitoring as they simply use a checklist to manage construction safety by identifying and recording violations.…”

Safety Management in Construction Projects

“…In addition, unsafe behavior may arise due to a worker's state of mind, tiredness, stress, or physical condition (Schaufelberger and Lin, 2014). Also, many factors such as insufficient and poor communication, sub-contracting to negligent firms, lack of H&S training and low educational level of construction staff members leads to accidents as affirmed by Cheng et al (2004). Schaufelberger and Lin (2014) recognized some examples of accident causes, such as:…”

“…The HSE in the United Kingdom declared that approximately 80% of accidents are attributable to human behavior (cited by Li and Poon, 2013). Cheng et al (2004) stated that low educational level of construction staff members is a factor that leads to accidents such as lack of training, insufficient and poor communication error and sub-contracting to negligent firms. Thorpe (2005) and Twort and Rees (2011) suggested that employers should prepare employees before starting construction work and provide relevant information to identify H&S risks to avert risks to their H&S. Moreover, awareness on the part of contractors is essential to encourage workers to follow H&S instructions.…”